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Documents for "English Literature to 1499: Biographies":

• Barbour, John c.1316?-1395, Scottish poet. He was archdeacon of Aberdeen from 1355 until his death. His romance, The Bruce (1375), celebrating Scotland's emancipation from England, recounts the heroic deeds of Robert I and Sir James Douglas. The poem was meant to be read as history and shows remarkable accuracy...

• Barnes, Juliana see Berners, Juliana.

• Berners, Juliana supposed early 15th-century author of a popular verse treatise on hunting. The treatise is included in The Book of St. Albans (1486), a collection treating the arts of heraldry, hawking, and field sports. If Juliana was the author, she is one of the earliest women writers in English; although tradition designates her the...

• Blind Harry or Henry the Minstrel, fl. late 15th cent., supposed Scottish poet. He is considered the author of the patriotic epic, The Wallace, which celebrates the life of Sir William Wallace. Violently anti-English,...

• Brakelond, Jocelin de see Jocelin de Brakelond.

• Cædmon fl. 670, English poet. He was reputed by Bede to be the author of early English versions of various Old Testament stories. According to Bede, Cædmon was an ignorant herder who received his poetic...

• Chaucer, Geoffrey c.1340-1400, English poet, one of the most important figures in English literature.

• Cynewulf fl. early 9th cent.?, Old English religious poet of Northumbria or Mercia. Four poems have been ascribed to him on the evidence of his signatures in runes in the text of each of these poems. The...

• Douglas, Gawin 1474?-1522, Scottish poet and churchman; son of Archibald Douglas, 5th earl of Angus. He is considered one of the great medieval Scottish poets. Douglas was Bishop of Dunkeld. Jealousy held by...

• Dunbar, William c.1460-c.1520, Scottish poet. After attending the Univ. of St. Andrews he was attached for some time to the Franciscans, probably as a novice. By 1491 he seems to have been connected with the court...

• Geoffrey of Monmouth c.1100-1154, English author. He was probably born at Monmouth and was of either Breton or Welsh descent. In 1152 he was named bishop of St. Asaph in Wales. His Historia regum Britanniae (written c.1135),...

• Gorboduc legendary early British king mentioned by Geoffrey of Monmouth. In his lifetime he divided his kingdom between his sons Ferrex and Porrex, thereby creating great civil strife in which the two sons...

• Gower, John 1330?-1408, English poet. He was the best-known contemporary and friend of Chaucer, who addressed him as "Moral Gower," at the end of Troilus and Criseyde. Apparently he was a Kentish landowner who lived in London until his last years, when he became blind and retired as a layman to the priory of St. Mary Overey. In the 15th and 16th cent. Gower was...

• Henry the Minstrel see Blind Harry.

• Henryson, Robert c.1425-c.1506, Scottish poet. It is thought that he was a schoolmaster at Dunfermline Abbey. His principal poem is The Testament of Cresseid, which was written as a harshly moral epilogue to Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde. In Henryson's version the heroine dies a destitute leper. Partly because of this poem, Henryson has been called a Scottish Chaucerian. That his temper is more Scottish than Chaucerian is shown by...

• Hoccleve, Thomas c.1368-c.1450, English poet, an imitator of Chaucer. He was a clerk in the office of the Privy Seal. His longest work, The Regiment of Princes, a didactic poem on the virtues and vices of a ruler, was addressed to the future King Henry V. Hoccleve's main importance is historical. His typically medieval lyrics to the Virgin, his ballades to...

• Joseph of Exeter fl. c.1190, English poet who wrote in Latin. He is best known for De Bello Trojano (c.1184), an epic poem in six books, written in the style of Vergil. His adventures in the Third Crusade were recounted...

• Langland, William c.1332-c.1400, putative author of Piers Plowman. He was born probably at Ledbury near the Welsh marshes and may have gone to school at Great Malvern Priory. Although he took minor orders he never became a priest. Later in London he apparently...

• Layamon fl. c.1200, first prominent Middle English poet. He described himself as a humble priest attached to the church at Ernley (Arley Regis) near Radstone. His Brut is a chronicle in 32,341 short lines...

• Lydgate, John c.1370-c.1450, English poet, a monk of Bury St. Edmunds. A professed disciple of Chaucer, he was one of the most influential, voluminous, and versatile writers of the Middle Ages. His works may be...

• Malory, Sir Thomas d. 1471, English author of Morte d'Arthur. It is almost certain that he was Sir Thomas Malory of Newbold Revell, Warwickshire. Knighted in 1442, he served in the Parliament of 1445. He was evidently a violent, lawless individual who...

• Mandeville, Sir John 14th-century English author of The Travels of Sir John Mandeville. Originally written in Norman French, the work became enormously popular and was translated into English, Latin, and most European languages. It purports to recount the author's travels through...

• Manning, Robert see Mannyng, Robert.

• Mannyng, Robert fl. 1298-1338, English poet, b. Brunne (modern Bourne), Lincolnshire; also called Robert of Brunne. He was a monk in the Gilbertine order. Mannyng is known chiefly for his Handling Sin, a lively religious...

• Map, Walter c.1140-c.1210, English author, b. Wales. A favorite of Henry II, he traveled with the king and became archdeacon of Oxford. The one work indubitably his, De nugis curialium [courtiers' trifles], is a Latin prose collection of legends, tales, gossip, and anecdotes. Shrewd, witty, and satirical, the work shows Map as a wit and a man of the world, familiar with court...

• Mapes, Walter see Map, Walter.

• Medwall, Henry fl. 1486, first known English vernacular dramatist. He was chaplain to Cardinal Morton. His Fulgens and Lucrece (1497), whose heroine must choose between two suitors, is the earliest known secular...

• Merlin in Arthurian legend , magician, seer, and teacher at the court of King Vortigern and later at the court of King Arthur. He was a bard and culture hero in early Celtic folklore. In Arthurian legend he is famous as a...

• Minot, Laurence fl. 1333-52, English poet. He was the author of fervently patriotic war poems about Halidon Hill, the siege of Calais, and other battles. Probably a Yorkshireman, he may have been a soldier or a...

• Nennius fl. 796, Welsh writer, to whom is ascribed the Historia Britonum. He lived on the borders of Mercia and probably was a pupil of Elbod, bishop of Bangor. The Historia is a compilation containing much on the early history of Britain and the Anglo-Saxon invasions. Although some scholars think that it was compiled by Nennius from various works, most now agree that...

• Occleve, Thomas see Hoccleve, Thomas.

• Robert of Brunne see Mannyng, Robert.

• Thomas of Erceldoune fl. 1220?-1297?, Scottish seer and poet, also known as Thomas the Rhymer and Thomas Learmont. Evidence of his existence is founded on the mention of his name in documents of the 13th cent. Soon...

• Trevisa, John of c.1326-c.1402, English writer. He was the vicar of Berkeley. In 1387 he translated into English Ranulph Higden's Polychronicon, a history of the world, and in 1398, Bartholomew de Glanville's De...

• Usk, Thomas d. 1388, English politician and author. He was under-sheriff of London. While in Newgate Prison he wrote Testament of Love, an allegory in prose describing and justifying the political actions that...

• Wace c.1100-1174, Norman-French poet of Jersey. King Henry II made him canon of Bayeux. His Roman de Brut (1155) is a long, rhymed chronicle of British history based on the Historia of Geoffrey of Monmouth....

• Wakefield Master see Second Shepherds' Play.